LET US GO AFIELD 



Even on the great marshes round Lake Athabasca 

 we saw very few ducks. This was very largely 

 because the young birds were still in the grass and 

 not yet flying; but we talked with the Indians and 

 half breeds round Chippewyan and they all said 

 the birds were not so numerous as formerly. They 

 apply this statement also to birds bred north of 

 there. 



To be sure, old Peter Loutit, the champion goose- 

 killer of Chippewyan, killed eight hundred and 

 fifty white geese on his hunt last fall, putting them 

 up for winter meat; but Peter has shot for years 

 in this locality and he says the geese are by no means 

 so abundant as they used to be. 



It was one of my purposes in making this trip 

 down the Mackenzie River to get some information 

 on these very questions; so I made careful inquiry 

 of all available sources of information at all the 

 northern posts where we stopped in our journey of 

 two thousand miles north of Edmonton, to the Arc- 

 tic Ocean. The traders, the white residents, the In- 

 dians, and the half breeds all agreed, whenever asked 

 the question, that both ducks and geese seem to be 

 passing away. 



This information, the accuracy and general ap- 

 plicability of which could not be doubted, came in 

 very disconcerting fashion. Like everyone else I 



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